Read the passage and answer the questions given below it.
No one can look back on his schooldays and say with truth that they were altogether unhappy.
I have good memories of St Cyprian's, among a horde of bad ones. Sometimes on summer afternoons there were wonderful expeditions across the Downs to a village called Birling Gap, or to Beachy Head, where one bathed dangerously among the boulders and came home covered with cuts. And there were still more wonderful midsummer evenings when, as a special treat, we were not driven off to bed as usual but allowed to wander about the grounds in the long twilight, ending up with a plunge into the swimming bath at about nine o'clock. There was the joy of waking early on summer mornings and getting in an hour's undisturbed reading in the sunlit, sleeping dormitory. There was also cricket, which I was no good at but with which I conducted a sort of hopeless love affair up to the age of about eighteen. And there was the pleasure of keeping caterpillars, which could be illicitly purchased for sixpence at a shop in the town, and, when one could escape long enough from the master who was ‘taking the walk’, there was the excitement of dredging the dew-ponds on the Downs for enormous newts with orange-coloured bellies. This business of being out for a walk, coming across something of fascinating interest and then being dragged away from it by a yell from the master, like a dog jerked onwards by the leash, is an important feature of school life, and helps to build up the conviction, so strong in many children, that the things you most want to do are always unattainable.
The word illicitly, as used in the passage, means
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → in a way that broke the rules
Illicitly means in a way that is not allowed by the rules or the law.
- The passage says the caterpillars “could be illicitly purchased for sixpence”.
- The boys were not allowed to buy them. They bought them against the school rules. Example: The shopkeeper was fined for illicitly selling crackers near the school.
Why the Other Options are Incorrect?
Option 1: at a very low price — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: The price is given by the words “for sixpence”. Illicitly tells us how they were bought, not how cheaply. Example: Riya bought the old books at a very low price at the Sunday market.
Option 3: with great difficulty — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: Illicitly is about breaking a rule, not about hard work. The passage does not say the caterpillars were hard to get. Example: Grandfather climbed the steep stairs with great difficulty.
Option 4: in large numbers — Incorrect. Wrong meaning: Illicitly says nothing about how many. It only tells us the buying was not allowed. Example: People came in large numbers to see the Diwali fair.